=Evaluations of aims of teaching economics in college=
_The cultural aim_ in economics is to enable the student to comprehend the industrial world about him. It aims to liberate the mind from ignorance and prejudice, giving him insight into, and appreciation of, the industrial world in which he lives. In this aspect it is a liberal study. Economics produces in some measure this cultural result, even when it is studied primarily with the vocational or with the civic aim. But in vocational economics the choice of materials and the mode of treatment are deliberately restricted by the immediate utilitarian purposes; and in economic teaching with a civic purpose there is the continual temptation to arouse the sympathies for an immediate social program and to take a view limited by the contemporary popular interest in specific proposals for reform. Economics at its highest level is the search for truth. It has its place in any system of higher education as has pure natural science, apart from any immediate or so far as we may know, any possible, utilitarian application. It is a disinterested philosophy of the industrial world. Though it may not demonstrably be a _means_ to other useful things, it is itself a worthy _end_. It helps to enrich the community with the immaterial goods of the spirit, and it yields the psychic income of dignity and joy in the individual and national life. And as a final appeal to any doubting Philistine it may be said that just as the cult of pure science is necessary to the continual and most effective progress in the practical arts, so the study of economics on the philosophical plane surely is necessary to the highest and most lasting results in the application of economics to the arts and to civic life.
The differences in aims set forth in this paragraph result in much of the futile discussion in recent years regarding methods of teaching. Enthusiastic innovators have debated at cross purposes about teaching methods as if they were to be measured by some absolute standard of pedagogic values, not recognizing that the chief differences of views as to teaching methods were rooted in the differing aims. This truth will reappear at many points in the following discussion. "What will you have," quoth the Gods, "pay the price and take it."